


Within These Walls

by ssalemghostss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/M, Ghosts, Gore, Haunted House, Horror, Reylo - Freeform, Sixth Sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-09-24 09:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20355934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssalemghostss/pseuds/ssalemghostss
Summary: Ever since he was a young boy, Benjamin Solo could see ghosts.At first, he didn't realize what he was seeing; he only knew fear. As he grew older, his fear lessened, but he still did not know exactly what it was he saw roaming around the old house his father had been hired to remodel. For a very long time, he denied what he saw and heard to everyone, but especially to himself. Others would treat him like he was not of this world; like he was certainly no creation of their Creator. He was demonic. He was wrong.It wasn’t until he was in his second year of university that his opinions on the matter changed. And it had all been because of one very bull-headed, free-spirited girl whom he had met in the library, with a sixth sense all her own.





	Within These Walls

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thrilled to take part in this anthology. This theme was so fun to explore, and I can only hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!
> 
> Content Warnings:  
\- Mention of male/female brutality resulting in death  
\- Graphic depictions of ghosts  
\- Mild gore

Late August, 1885

London, England

_ It feels strange, traveling through this city I once called home. It’s as though I never left; street signs, store fronts, and the winding, narrow roads themselves are familiar to me. Yet at the same time I feel as though I am looking upon a city of ghosts. Did this place ever really exist, or did it only live inside my head?  _

Ben Solo sucked on the tip of his trusty fountain pen and admired his words while the ink dried upon the page of his leather-bound notebook. He kept detailed notes of everything he did in a day on his adventures. He had stacks upon stacks of full notebooks back home, all piled precariously atop his desk and in the corners of his tiny office. While all were full of their own stories, most were still waiting in purgatory to see heaven’s light.

Once again his eyes, hazy with a daydream, moved to the carriage window. The grimy glass blurred and distorted the world outside. Things seemed to stretch and fade, moving in unusual and unearthly ways, and it fascinated him. 

Ben went back to scribbling in his notebook. He’d jot down a nice line here, a memo to himself there. After a little while, he got lost in a crude drawing of a pair of eyes. They were young eyes, bright and full, but they were terribly sad, and flooded with tears. He didn’t have any colour ink, but he knew the eyes were hazel; a pleasing mix of chocolate brown and forest greens. He just knew, despite the fact that they were but a foggy memory in the back of his mind.

He went over his drawing again and again until the ink had bled through the paper. He became lost in a trance, and all he could see or think about were those sad, scared eyes, and the heavy tears which fell from them like jewels.

Ben Solo was a large man, tall in stature with long, muscular legs and a broad chest. It was miraculous enough that he had been able to fit into the packed carriage and his knees weren’t completely pressing into his ribs. But, lost in a daze such as he was, he had elected to hunch almost completely over, with the tip of his long nose nearly touching his notebook. 

His eyes followed the tip of his pen back and forth and around again, lost in the fluid motion. All he could see were those eyes. They pierced his very soul and awakened a part of him which had long laid forgotten in the recesses of his busy mind. He had seen those sad eyes before, in a dream or maybe, even, a nightmare. 

The carriage driver’s sudden exclamation, followed quickly by his faithful horse’s whinny, finally snapped Ben out of his daze. He blinked rapidly to restore moisture to his burning eyes. Confused over how much time he had lost just then, he looked out the window and his heart jumped into his throat.

This place was a ghost to him, to be sure, but it was also very, very real. It had been a lifetime since he had seen it last.

The long, winding driveway was still the same, paved in white stone and bordered with small shrubs and fruit trees, which were now vastly overgrown. They curled around a curve to the left and the foliage opened up, revealing a true feat of architecture.

The grand Victorian house still stood there, nestled between the two ancient willow trees, and suddenly he was a young child again, staring out into the sweeping green lawns which used to be his playground.

It looked exactly as he remembered it: the spires atop the lone, high tower; the rustic, pale brick exterior with red shingles; the, frankly, eccentric amount of panelled windows. 

It filled him with an overwhelming sensation of childhood joy and, at the same time, gut-wrenching horror. 

Just peeking over the rooftop of the house, he could see the full branches of the old oak tree in the backyard. Flashing images of shadowy bodies, white eyes, and dangling limbs swaying in the gentle breeze danced in his mind, terrorizing him. The memories made him swallow and an icy chill trickled down the back of his neck.

“This is beautifully eerie.”

Rey’s voice beside him made his heart clench. He had been so lost in his head on the journey here he had somehow managed to forget she was still sat next to him, despite the fact that her thigh was pressed against his upon the narrow seat they shared. He looked at her and saw her admiring the house with wide eyes, leaned over as she was to look out his bleary window. She gave a low whistle.

“And you used to live here?”

Their carriage driver brought them up the cobblestone path to the front door and came to a gradual halt. Ben could hear the driver descending from his perch and gathering their luggage, and yet he didn’t want to touch the handle to open the carriage door. He didn’t want to step foot outside, because once he did, he could never go back.

The driver gave him no alternative, however. He opened Ben’s door and stared at him expectantly. Ben took a deep breath and swallowed a mysterious lump in his throat before stepping out of the carriage’s safety. Rey paid the driver their fare and ensured all their luggage had survived the trip while Ben faced his childhood home for the first time in years. This was where he had discovered his gift. It had terrified him then, and it terrified him now.

Ever since he was a young boy, Benjamin Solo could see ghosts.

At first, he didn’t realize what he was seeing. He could remember sitting in the shade beneath the old oak tree in the backyard, his mother keeping a watchful eye on him from the stone porch by the house. He would look away from her, just for a minute, and his gaze would travel upwards into the ancient tree’s long, gnarled branches. He would see them up there, dancing like grey shadows amidst the foliage.

Some would be perched upon the branches, and although he couldn’t see their eyes, he would know they were looking down at him, observing him, even as an infant. Others would dart around, purposefully distracting, swarming like angry bees around a hive that had been disturbed. 

Then there had been the Danglers, which Ben had hated the most.

They had resided on only the longest, thickest branches of the tree. Their grey, humanoid shapes would hang, just a few feet below the branch itself. Their necks were long, skinny, and bent at extreme angles. Their appendages never moved. And though they were not visibly connected to the tree, a breeze would come along and they would sway, back and forth, commanding his attention like the hypnotist’s pocket watch. 

At first, the Grey People had scared him. He would see the Danglers and cry hysterically, forcing his mother to take him inside in a panic, where he would only calm once he had been rocked in the safety of his parents’ bedroom. 

On top of it all, there had been an ever-present voice in the house which spoke to him with a malicious tongue. It told him to do awful things like push his mother down the stairs into the cellar, or to steal the neighbour’s kittens from under their porch and drown them in the tub. He never did these things, but a part of him always thought the voice only wanted to frighten him and make him emotional; it took pleasure in it. This voice had woven itself only sparsely into his memory, for it had frightened him so greatly that he had elected to repress it, and to try and convince himself that it had only ever been a terrible nightmare with a lasting impression. He never told anyone about the voice, in all his years on earth.

As he grew older, his fear lessened, but he still did not know exactly what it was he saw roaming around the old house his father had been hired to remodel. He went through phases as he tried to comprehend it. There was a time where he believed they were his own personal variant on “imaginary friends,” a term he had heard adults use quite frequently to explain away these Grey People when he had been growing up. But most of these “imaginary” folk had been no friends of his. 

For a very long time, he denied what he saw and heard to everyone, but especially to himself. Once he turned nine years old, he knew better than to talk about his imaginary “friends” in front of others, for he knew they would look at him strangely and take an unconscious step backwards. They treated him like he was not of this world; like he was certainly no creation of their Creator. He was demonic. He was wrong.

The carriage driver hopped back into his perch and commanded his horses, who trotted off in the way they had come. Ben and Rey were alone with the spirits now. And as Ben looked up at the old house, he felt it staring back at him.

He took his first steps up the old wooden porch stairs, whose white paint was almost entirely chipped away, and felt a strange tug of nostalgia at their squeaking protest. He remembered this house being brand new, with a fresh coat of paint and uncracked windows. To be fair, it wasn’t nearly in the state of ruin he had imagined it would be, but it had certainly fallen from the restored grace his father had left it in all those years ago. 

Carpentry had been Han Solo’s passion for many, many years. He had built and restored houses all over England and America, and even a few in France. He had been exceptional at his job. Ben could only hope to be as passionate and dedicated at his profession as his father had been.

Of course, Ben not following in his father’s footsteps had come as quite a shock to Han at first. Ben had always been good with his hands and capable with tools. But alas, carpentry had never been Ben’s calling. It didn’t speak to him the way the dead did.

It wasn’t until he was in his second year of university, studying literature, that his opinions on the matter changed. And it had all been because of one very bull-headed, free-spirited girl whom he had met in the library, with a sixth sense all her own.

Rey Johnson, a Biology student at the nearby women’s college, couldn’t see spirits, but she could sense them. She called herself an empath, meaning she could feel what the dead felt. If a spirit had suffered pain in life, she endured it, too — every heartbreak, every disappointment, and every single pinprick of pain. She could slip into the overbearing coats of murderers and thieves and unwillingly, even unwittingly at times, take on their chaotic, destructive emotions.

It took a long time for Ben to see her gift as anything other than an unfortunate curse which had been laid upon her. But when Rey refused to leave him alone and, despite his protests, secured her firm position in his life, he began to view things differently.

It was Rey who had proposed he start looking for answers. This was shortly after Ben had divulged his biggest secret to her at the end of a very long night after he found the bottom of a third wine bottle. He’d never told anyone outside his family before, and he wasn’t certain if it was the alcohol which forced the words to spill from his mouth or some other unknown factor, but once he had spoken them he knew he couldn’t take them back. Surprisingly, though, she did not roll her eyes or walk away from him. She had cried inebriated but sincere tears for him, and for their unfortunate similarities. She had consoled him, and promised that he could find belonging and comfort in her, if he wished it. And so he did.

During one particularly cold and gloomy April morning, over two steaming hot cups of Italian coffee, she had informed him she’d been doing research, and had uncovered a particularly intriguing opportunity in which he may find the answers he’d been looking for his entire life: professional ghost hunting. 

“Think about it,” she had told him. “Seers and seances, ectoplasm and dancing naked in the moonlight: all these things have a commonality. They are all attempts to find an answer; some kind of solace to make things easier. What happens after we die? Are our loved ones safe on the Other Side? Is there really a God? Humans are innately curious, Ben; it’s in our nature. We all have seemingly impossible questions we want answered. What if we were to give others peace of mind, and maybe, along the way, we can find it for ourselves, too?”

Ben hadn’t been able to scrub the idea from his mind. He denied her at first when she initially broached the subject, declaring it to be “ludicrous” and swearing up and down that it would never work. But that night he had laid awake in bed, staring up at the wooden boards of his ceiling, and he imagined a best-selling novel with his name on it, filled with daring tales of his adventures in the spirit world. Ever since he’d been young, writing nonsensical novels in his bedroom, he’d imagined a beautifully printed book with his name on it, but he’d never quite been able to visualize the subject matter, until now. 

Maybe, if he put in the right effort to better comprehend his Sight, an improved understanding of the dead would come in time. Having something to write about may only be a tiny fraction of the benefits.

The very next day, he met with Rey for tea at their favourite shop, apologizing profusely for rebuking her proposal, to which Rey waved him off as she so often did in that casual manner of hers which clearly said she had expected no less from him. But, much to his delight, he still managed to give her a good shock when he asked her to be his partner in this new endeavour of his. Though neither of them knew it yet, they were not prepared for the consequences of that request.

As they each finished their education, Ben and Rey traveled to many locations together and found themselves falling ever deeper into the endless realm that is the paranormal. They saw things they never thought to be possible: levitating furniture, flickering lights, ghostly shadows and haunting whispers which excited them as much as it kept them up at night. But through all of that, they managed to keep their wits about them, if only because they knew at the end of a long day they had each other.

And as time passed, Ben felt his feelings towards Rey shift. They grew warmer, and he found himself feeling lonely, even amongst a crowd, if she wasn’t there next to him. Somehow, somewhere along the road, she had woven herself into the very fabric of his soul. He hadn’t felt it happen. There had been no distinct moment of clarity for him; no split second in time when he realized he had feelings for her. Just, gradually, he grew to adore the way she snorted when she laughed too hard, and the way her nose wrinkled and wiggled when she was concentrating. 

Maybe it was just a passing fancy, spurred by their working relationship and the vast amounts of time they spent in each other’s company. Ben didn’t know, and he wasn’t quite certain how to figure it out. He’d never been faced with such a situation before. His first instinct was to deny it; if he ignored it, there was a chance it would simply fade into nonexistence, like it had only ever been a strange dream.

But, there again, if it was only in passing, and his emotions would fade, why was the magnetic spark between them so real, and so hard to ignore? He felt it all the time. For instance, during an innocent meal, or when they would conduct research and compile evidence. Or when it was just the two of them late at night, going over their findings, and she became tired and rested her head on his shoulder. There was just something there, something so vivid and alive and warm. She was only tired, and getting comfortable as most people do to rest; it surely didn’t mean anything to her. But it made him want to place a kiss upon her head, in the hopes that she may feel it in her sleep and smile.

And life went on like that, for a little while. Until they kissed.

It had been an accident. They were investigating a very old house in Wales, whose owner complained of the sounds of horrendous sobbing which came from the attic each night. Certainly not the most romantic of places, at least not to people with average occupations. 

The offending spirit had been that of a lady who owned the house in 1804, and who died of a broken heart after her lover left her. Her loneliness, when mixed with Ben and Rey’s attraction, created a potent, emotional atmosphere that affected them both, in nearly equal measure, from the moment they entered the home.

The spirit’s aching emotions overtook Rey before they could even begin to look for evidence, and she burst into tears in the middle of the parlour. Quickly, Ben had rushed to her side and taken her into his arms, shushing her and reminding her that she was safe. He could still to this day see the inquisitive, pleading look which had spread across her face as she peered up at him from his chest. 

“Don’t cry,” he’d told her, brushing a falling tear from her cheek. “I hate to see you cry.” 

She had been keeping her body a hair’s breadth away from his instead of stepping back in embarrassment as she was wont to do. Those large hazel eyes of hers had lingered for just a second too long on the swell of his mouth, as though searching for something. 

Suddenly, and much to his surprise, she had taken his face in her hands and kissed him, ever so gently at first. But it was warm, and affectionate, and loving; it was everything the energy inhabiting that house had craved, and so too did it satiate their long-repressed desires.

If the homeowner had not re-entered the house with an armful of fresh bread to offer the two of them, Ben could only imagine what else may have happened (and he often did). 

What had come over them? What had changed? Ben knew his feelings were real and entirely his own, but he couldn’t say the same for Rey. How did he know it hadn’t simply been the manipulation of a lonely spirit which had made her willing to kiss him? If only he could find the courage to ask her these questions as easily as he can find the courage to face the afterlife.

But that had happened nearly a year ago, in September, and nothing more had happened since. Only lingering stares and hesitant smiles passed between them now.

It didn’t matter anyway, he’d remind himself. No matter how badly either of them might want the other, the ghosts always came first. 

The door opened with a gentle push, swinging inwards on hinges that screeched in protest. He was instantly hit by the unmistakable smell of musty carpet and long-settled dust. It made his throat tickle.

He gazed into the long stretch of darkness before him, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness before walking inside. Of course, he knew exactly what he would see. He remembered enough; quick little snapshots flared in his mind of a stone fireplace and heavy pine bannisters, trailing up the sides of a tall, curved staircase. It just wasn’t the physical, material objects he was looking for.

He could feel them freeze inside the house, all at once. A hundred pairs of eyes upon him, searching him, recognizing him. The boy who could see them had finally returned, and they were the reason why.

He’d come for answers; to learn the truth about his childhood, and why so many dead things occupied this place and continued to linger long after passing on. He’d come to learn about those eyes he kept seeing, and the terrifying voice which had haunted his sleep even long after he had moved away. This was it. In a way, he felt like this was what he had been working towards all along. He wanted so badly for this to be his last chapter; that he might close this volume of his life and never reopen it again. But how could he know it would give him closure to come back here and investigate, and not simply make matters worse?

Rey pushed past him, having grown accustomed to his moments of statue-like thought, and waddled into the house with a suitcase in each hand. She set them down with a couple of heavy thunks, which caused two distinct clouds of dust to shoot up into the air around her head. She began to cough and sputter.

“Hardly here for a minute and I’ve already gotten dust in my eyes,” she grumbled, rubbing at them furiously.

Ben sighed. That was one way to coax him into a house.

“Wouldn’t be a real investigation if you didn’t,” he quipped, somewhat under his breath but still plenty loud enough for her to hear.

“This place needs a good cleaning,” she tittered, observing her dim surroundings with only a hint of skepticism. “Though, I suppose we’ve worked in worse conditions.”

“Speaking of the conditions, what do you feel? Anything at all?” Ben asked. He was particularly anxious to know her answer in this case.

“Hmm…” 

She walked slowly about the room, her eyes rolling this way and that, looking up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Her heeled boots’ rhythmic tapping echoed throughout the whole house, and Ben could feel the nearing presence of those who still resided there. 

Rey came to a sudden halt next to an old, moth-eaten armchair facing the fireplace. Her fingers stretched out to caress the high, curving back of the chair, as though it were the head of a baby. 

“This is where it happened,” she murmured suddenly, keeping her attention on the chair.

“Where what happened?” Ben demanded, stepping closer.

But she had no time to answer before the unmistakable sound of hurried footsteps above their heads made them both still with bated breath.

“Did you hear that?” Rey whispered. She had backed away from the chair once the noise started, and her eyes were wide and alert now. 

Ben nodded. He was looking up to the ceiling, at the spot from where he thought the sound had come. He searched his mind, trying to remember, and thought he could recall the master bedroom being in that area. 

“Do you see anything?” Rey asked.

She alarmed him, having snuck up behind him on her tiptoes. He visibly jumped when she spoke, and when he managed to toss her a dark glare, she was half-smiling with amusement.

“Would you stop doing that? And no, I don’t see anything,” he hissed.

That fact disturbed him. In all his memories of this place, no matter how fuzzy they were, there were spirits. This house was infested with them. They were in every room and around every shadowy corner; they hid in the trees outside and walked across the grounds as though still alive. Ben knew that. He remembered it. So where were they now?

“Come,” Rey urged, “let’s walk around a bit more, shall we?” 

She took his hand in hers and tugged on it, meaning to lead him into the sunken family room off to the side of the staircase. Her fingers were ice cold, as they so often were. Most of the time she wore gloves, not only to keep her hands warm, but to dull her touch-sensitivity to the spirit world’s hardships. 

Ben had thought, for a very long time in fact, that he had been afflicted by some sort of awful curse, due to the fact that he could see spirits everywhere he went. But after meeting Rey and learning her story, he very quickly realized that hers was the worse of their two gifts. While Ben had seen some truly horrific things which had irrevocably warped his sense of reality, he did not think that could possibly compare to feeling what those spirits felt. To feel the same, concentrated horror, fear, and panic as those who had died tragic deaths; to be able to feel a knife slip between her ribs and know it had been someone else’s demise...Ben just couldn’t imagine it.

They covered the main floor in twenty minutes without hearing any more footsteps. It wasn’t until they got to the second floor and walked straight into the master bedroom that Ben saw the first one.

He froze in the doorway, yanking Rey backwards by the hand when she walked ahead of him. 

“What? What is it?” she whispered.

But Ben didn’t respond. He was too busy staring at the grisly spectre of death before him. 

It was a woman, that much he could tell. The remains of her straggly, mousy-brown hair hung in greasy clumps down her back. She was hovering, up near the ceiling, in the far east corner of the bedroom, hidden in the shadowed place where the sunlight coming in through the window couldn’t touch. She liked it there. 

She knew he was watching her, though. Slowly, her body pivoted to the left, turning around like a grotesque ballerina in a jewelry box. Her grimy, dirt-stained dress caught the draft of air as she turned and its tattered skirt trailed behind like dismembered insect wings. 

But the noise — oh, the noise she made — it made his ears ring and his stomach turn, and for a split second he thought he was either going to vomit or scream. It was a raspy, prolonged groaning noise, akin to the aching squeak of rusty door hinges, or nails scraping their way down a blackboard. It was as if she was trying to speak, but she had no vocal chords left to do so. So all that escaped her agape mouth was this awful, inhuman noise.

Ben’s fingers tightened around Rey’s, enough to make her wince, though she didn’t protest, or pull her hand away.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” she commented idly. Her own eyes roved the room, seeing nothing.

“I can feel it, whatever you’re seeing,” she continued. “The emotions radiating from this spirit are heartbreaking; it’s filling the room like toxic smoke. Whoever it is, they were hurt by someone they trusted. Murdered in cold blood, and nobody has found their remains…”

Her voice trailed off, though her haunting words had done nothing to console their fears.

The spirit looked nothing like a human. In fact, it was so misshapen Ben almost doubted that it had ever been a person to begin with. He certainly couldn’t remember seeing her as a young boy, and she was not the kind of apparition one would forget. Her mouth was open in an eternal, lopsided scream, her jaw broken and hanging, unhinged. What remained of her blackened tongue lolled out, trembling as she continued to speak in her foreign language. Her eyes were dead and white, her arms freakishly long, ending in bony, broken fingers. She stilled, and although her eyes were fog, Ben knew she was looking right at him.

“What happened to you?” he whispered, his voice shaking.

She began to shriek at an ear-splitting pitch, as though in an effort to respond to him, and the sound made Ben grit his teeth until it hurt. 

“Ben…”

He turned to Rey just in time to catch her as she collapsed. The instant he had her safely in his arms, the shrieking ended, and he looked to the room to see the apparition had vanished.

“Rey? Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes fluttered open a second later, and he could tell she was having trouble focusing on his face. Her skin had gone as pale as bleached bone, and her normally supple body felt cold and strangely delicate to him. She was trembling, ever so slightly.

“Did you hear it?” she asked in a raspy whisper. 

“Yes, I heard it,” he replied, distracted. “Can you sit up a little? I should get you some water—”

“But you didn’t  _ feel  _ it,” she interjected, as though he hadn’t even spoken. “It was so, so cold. Colder than the coldest winter you’ve lived through. And there was this overwhelming fear that was eating away at me; it wasn’t my fear. It was far more potent than my fear.”

“You should really drink—”

“And she was so lonely,” she continued, locking eyes with him as though seeing him for the first time since collapsing. “She just wanted to share her love, and be loved by anyone…”

There was something there, suddenly, in the air between them. It was not the first time it had appeared, nor, Ben knew, would it be the last. It was warm and alive, like sparks jumping from wild flames. He recognized it instantly, and he could tell by the way her brow creased just slightly that she did too. 

It was so alluring, so incredibly magnetic, that they struggled not to act on it. For a moment it was as though they had traveled back to that house in Wales, sitting on the dirt-streaked oak floors, fingertips chilled from an autumn night’s cold temperature. 

Ben’s breath hitched as he noticed her fingers reaching out to touch his face. Was this going to be another one of those times where they give in? And if so, how far would they let it go?

Her fingers were icy cold but it felt refreshing against his cheek’s heated skin. They skated along his cheekbone and cupped his jaw, whilst her thumb lingered delicately near the fleshy corner of his mouth.

“So lonely…” she repeated in a breath. 

Unconsciously, as if drawn by a magnet, Ben had leaned in closer to her. It mystified him and frightened him all at the same time, but he was powerless against its pull. 

Suddenly, there was the awful sound of glass shattering downstairs — sharp popping explosions, three of them in total, followed by the delicate tinkling of shards, skittering over the hardwood floors.

Both Ben and Rey jumped at the sound and whatever trance they had entered into broke in an instant. Rey supported herself, effectively rendering Ben’s arms around her useless.

“What was that?” she whispered sharply. “Was that in the dining room?”

“I think so. Let’s go look.”

He cautioned Rey to mind her step as they turned the corner into the dining room. Sure enough, three wine glasses lay shattered to pieces all over the floor, with shards spread out to every corner. 

“Goodness,” Rey mused. A few pieces of glass crunched under her heels as she risked a few steps farther in. “Look at the mess! Do you think it’s a poltergeist?” 

Ben shook his head. “No, just a very strong spirit or two. They may be difficult to communicate with, if they’re in this kind of mood.”

“We should hold a seance,” Rey suggested bluntly. “Then the conversation can be on our terms.”

Ben didn’t agree, but he didn’t voice this to Rey. There was no convincing a spirit to do your bidding, despite what legends and fairytales might have one believe. The ghosts may even refuse to attend the seance, for all he knew. But he preferred to keep his hopes at or below ground level, whereas his partner preferred to let hers fly as high as they like.

“I’ll unpack the candles and matches,” he replied monotonously. 

They set up at the scarred, dust-covered dining room table after sweeping up some of the glass on the floor. They were truly thankful that whomever had lived in the house last left much of their furniture in it. Ben couldn’t help but absently wonder if it had been a widow who left all this behind, or a victim of some unfortunate mishap. Either way, they had no one who wanted any of it, and that left a heavy feeling in Ben’s gut.

A little while later, they sat across from one another at the table on uncomfortable wooden chairs. The vibrant evening light was dying quickly outside the dust-covered windows, and the only light which remained strong was that of the candles between them. 

Ben watched with great reverence as Rey offered libations, coins, and a few wilting wildflowers she had picked earlier in the day. She poured a fine, rich Scottish whisky that seeped into the cracks and scrapes of the table, spreading out in a moderately-sized uneven shape between them. Ben had to try not to wince every time they poured libations for the spirits. That was a very expensive whisky to be donating to dead people, after all. But Rey insisted, every time, arguing that it was a sign of respect, and that they meant no harm. He had long since stopped fighting her on that point, or suggesting they use a cheaper whisky. 

And then she did what she always did — what you’re  _ supposed _ to do — at a seance: she reached across the table, palms up, requesting his hands. And as always, his eyes flickered from her open palms to her face, as if looking to find that glimmer in her eyes which told him that yes, she just wanted to touch him as he did her. But, like always at a seance, he did not find it, and he cursed himself for being so selfish as to search for it there in the first place.

Her calloused palms and dainty fingers disappeared as his large, well-worked hands swallowed them in his grasp. She squeezed them gently before closing her eyes, inspiring him to do the same. 

“I speak to the spirits of this house, and of this land, and I bid you to come forward,” she began in an even, clear voice. “Please entreat us with your company and accept these offerings we make to you. Speak with us, but do not harm us. You do not have permission to do harm, or to follow us out of this house when we leave. What is it that tethers you to the living world?”

The house did not speak an answer, but neither of them expected it to. They knew better. They could be sitting there until the candles sputtered out in a pool of their own wax and not get a single answer, for all Ben knew. This house may contain a myriad of ghouls, but they were not of the sort to bend to the living’s will.

Rey pressed on, however, asking for names and places and reasons. She would only interject herself to ask Ben if he saw anything, and when he inevitably replied ‘no’, she continued. 

It was somewhat entertaining and slightly charming, the way she gradually became more and more frustrated with the spirits when they didn’t answer her. Her brow furrowed, she frowned, and her questions grew shorter and more demanding.

“Tell me who killed you,” she ordered, and her own voice echoed back to her.

This went on for several minutes more before the inquisition got cut off abruptly. Something appeared to kick the leg of the table at which they sat, causing the edge of it to jolt into Rey’s gut. She made a quick noise of shock and her hands instantly pushed the table back. The candles had tipped and spilled their wax all over the tabletop, some of which ended up splattering on Rey’s jacket sleeve. 

Rey lifted suspicious, angry eyes to Ben. He had just been sitting there, hands outstretched uselessly, having not expected such a level of activity to arise so suddenly. 

“Please, I implore you, do not tell me you did that,” Rey threatened menacingly.

“I certainly did not!” Ben cried out, shaking his head like a vapid fool, somehow more frightened by her potent rage than he was by the ghosts. “My feet were perfectly still, and my hands — they were in yours.” 

Rey huffed, not comforted in the slightest by the knowledge that it had been a spirit making contact. She began to furiously pick at the already dry wax on her jacket sleeve.

“Something here does not like you,” Ben said ominously, looking around the room. “But whatever it is, it’s not showing itself to me.” 

“Yes, because it’s a coward!” Rey snarled. The sharpness of her voice rang in Ben’s ears. “It would rather kick tables and have us running up and down the stairs than deal with us properly. It knows it doesn’t belong here, and we could force it out.” 

“Rey…” Ben said quietly, cautiously.

_ “What?” _ Rey snapped.

“Don’t move,” Ben ordered.

Ben could see Rey’s eyes widen with the sudden, harrowing realization that he was not looking directly at her, but rather at a point roughly five feet above her head. He watched her body stiffen in the blurry outlines of his vision as she struggled not to instinctively turn around.

His eyes were wide, nostrils flared, and his shoulders were set with his arms akimbo as if ready to attack, or to run. And it’s true, he wasn’t quite sure how to process what he was seeing, and for good reason.

There was a large, rather weighty-looking crystal vase, hovering roughly seven feet in the air, about two yards behind Rey, glistening at the edge of the shadowy kitchen. It was entirely still, and could even have looked like it was meant to be there, if not for the fact that it was without any kind of visible support, and its weighty base was aimed directly at her.

“Ben? What is it?” Rey whispered through taught lips. 

“There’s a vase.”

“A what?” 

“A vase. I think something is waiting for the right time to break it over your head.” 

_ “What?” _

_ “Duck!” _

Ben dove across the table just as Rey ducked her head, covering her as best he could with his upper body as his legs hung off the other side of the table, one shoe on his chair for support. She screamed, but the sound was muffled by the large vase’s explosive shattering as it smashed into the tabletop at Ben’s side. He meant to push himself off the table and run; he shifted his weight to his right knee, when he felt a minor stabbing sensation in his thigh, just above the joint, and he winced. It was quickly replaced with a flood of warmth when his fresh blood seeped into his pants. 

“We need to go,” he said into her ear. “Follow me, and be quick.”

Her hand held fast to his and he pulled her towards the closest room he could see: a half-bath, just off the kitchen. Every step he took with his right leg sent pain tearing up and down his side, and he couldn’t help but limp his way in when they finally reached the door.

Rey shut it fast behind them and Ben could hear her panicked breathing. They were in complete darkness.

“I have the matches from the seance,” Ben stammered, digging in his jacket pockets. “Here they are.”

His hands were trembling ever so slightly when he selected a match, and it did not light on his first strike, or even the second. On the third it sparked and sputtered to life, drenching them in bright orange light for a brief moment. Rey quickly went to work looking around the bathroom. 

She spotted a small, sturdy cabinet by the sink which she quickly dragged over to the door in order to brace it shut. By the time she got it there, the match went out, and Ben quickly lit another one. 

She yanked on the drawer handles of the ancient cabinet, and they squealed as they opened, the forgotten items inside rattling forward. She had to look through three of the four drawers before she finally found a candle and holder. She set it up atop the cabinet, and Ben lit it with a fresh match. 

Finally, they could each catch their breath. Using the sink for support, Rey sunk down onto her knees, exhaling slowly out of her mouth. Ben slid down the wall to the floor and as he settled onto it, more pain shot down his leg, reminding him of his weakness. He drew air sharply in between his teeth.

Rey, of course, noticed this instantly. She saw his hand gripping his thigh next, and then the dark circle of blood on his pants.

“You’re hurt,” she observed, quickly crawling towards him on the floor, ignorant of the state of her dress skirts. 

“It’s fine. I got cut by some glass when the vase broke, that’s all.” He brushed it off automatically, without really knowing why. But with her so close to him, leaning in like she was, her eager fingers inching closer to his leg to inspect his injury, it was difficult paying much mind to what words he chose to speak and when.

That was another aspect which had inevitably drawn him to her: how beautiful she looked, bathed in candlelight.

“Is there glass in your wound?” she questioned. 

“The what? Oh, I-I don’t know. I didn’t look.” 

“Then I’m afraid it’s not fine, not until you know for certain.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, so take off your pants, please.”

Ben choked, coughing and sputtering until his eyes were wet with tears. And all the while Rey remained still and calm, watching him with an even stare. 

“I’m sorry—what did you say?” he wheezed.

“I said, take off your pants, please. I need to look at your wound and see if the glass is still in it or not.” 

He cleared his throat, and from his neck up, he felt about thirty degrees too hot. 

“Oh. Er—alright.” 

Rey averted her gaze by searching for useful materials while he shimmied his pants awkwardly down below his knees. Now he felt truly absurd and exposed, sitting before her in his undergarments with his pants practically around his ankles, his right leg stained in his own blood. For some peculiar reason, he found himself shifting his position, angling his hips a little bit away from her, and pulling his jacket down as far as he could. It wasn’t until he felt adequately covered that he informed her he was ready.

She inspected his wound with a gentle touch, unperturbed by the fresh blood which dribbled out onto her fingers. Ben watched her closely. 

“It’s not very deep at all, so that’s good,” she sighed, sounding relieved and sitting back on her heels. “I can see the glass in there, though, so I’m going to have to take it out, as well as dress and clean the wound.” Without any apparent hesitation, she tore a long strip of fabric off the hem of her dress skirt and ripped it in half — her surgical arsenal.

“Yes ma’am,” Ben nodded slowly. “Whatever you have to do.” 

“This will hurt a bit,” she warned, watching his reaction carefully.

_ With you here, next to me?  _ he thought to himself. “I can handle that.”

Just before she set to work on taking the glass out of his leg, she asked, “Tell me more about your time growing up here. You mentioned yesterday there was one room you were terrified of? Where is that?”

Ben felt a sharp, stinging pain in his leg and squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep, slow breath before replying.

“It’s in the basement. There’s a cold room, with a trapdoor that goes down into a dirt cellar. It’s very dark, and it smells like earth and rotting leaves and something else; something more putrid and sour,” he explained.

“A trapdoor? That sounds elaborate,” Rey quipped.

“I suppose it is. We never used it. The—ouch _ — _ cold room was enough for us.”

“Sorry. What didn’t you like about it, exactly? Besides the smell.” 

“I…”

Ben screwed his face up, but not from pain. The memory was foggy after so many years, and he could only recall it in flash images and sensations now, but he could never forget the fear. If he thought about it hard enough, he could still taste the salt of the tears that had poured down his face that day as he had pounded relentlessly on that trapdoor. 

“I was five years old. My mother had gone into town and my father was busy working on the outside of the house. I had a nanny named Mrs. MacDonald, though I use the term loosely. Often times, when she was the only adult around to watch me, I’d end up wandering around by myself, unsupervised and exploring the house, usually with a toy or two in hand. 

“This time, I traveled down the steps into the basement. It was just after lunch, so there was enough daylight coming in the windows to chase away the darkness. I went into the cold room to look for a snack, I think. My mother kept canned fruits and vegetables down there, and some jams and jellies. 

“I remember pulling a jar of raspberry jelly off the shelf; I can still see the pink and white cloth Mother had wrapped around the lid. I remember pulling that cloth off and discarding it on the floor. But I had trouble trying to open the jar, so I bent down to try tapping the lid on the ground to loosen it. That’s when I noticed that part of the floor sounded hollow. 

“I brushed away all the dirt and dust and found the latch. Somehow I got it open, because I ended up crawling down the ladder into the cellar. But I was only holding it open with my hand, and something startled me in the dark back corner and I jumped, letting go of the door. It came down hard and hit me on the top of the head, causing me to fall off the ladder onto the hard dirt. I can’t remember, but I think it knocked the wind out of me, and I might have gone unconscious for a few minutes.” 

“Oh, you poor thing!” Rey exclaimed. Her brow had knitted in the middle, though not from her concentration. “You must have been awfully frightened.”

“Yes. I couldn’t push the door back open, no matter how hard I tried. It was as if something was sitting on top of it, barring me from getting out. Naturally, I panicked, as only a five-year-old could. I began to scream and cry and pound on the door, begging for my father to hear me but knowing that he couldn’t possibly over the sounds of his hammer and saw. 

“I believe I was down there screaming for nearly five hours before my mother got home and found me. Needless to say, the nanny was promptly fired, and in a very harsh manner, too.” 

“Five hours?” Rey exclaimed. “What did you do down there for five hours?”

“I cried. I screamed until my throat was raw. I pounded on the underside of that door until my fists were numb and red, and I had splinters in my knuckles. When I finally gave up on that, I returned to the ground and huddled in a corner, still crying, still afraid, and unable to see a thing. But I could hear rustling in that back corner again, and I kept telling myself it was only a rat, or perhaps a family of mice, even though in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t. I knew. I couldn’t see them in the dark, but I knew I wasn’t alone down there.

“Eventually they showed themselves to me, once my eyes adjusted some. I could see their shadowy forms lingering in the corner, slowly swaying side-to-side, like three kelp fronds caught in the current of the ocean. They had long, skinny necks, grotesque and unnatural, too weak to hold up their heads which slumped uselessly onto their shoulders. I called them Danglers. Normally they were found in the trees outside, dangling in the wind. But now, for some reason, they were in that musty cellar, with me. They stayed there like that, watching me, for a long time. And I didn’t dare take my eyes off of them, in case they moved.”

“How did they make you feel?” Rey asked, ever the empath.

“I remember feeling cold...but a different kind of cold than the cellar’s natural temperature. It penetrated my bones, made me shiver, and chilled my blood. I couldn’t stop shaking. 

“The cellar didn’t look like the cellar anymore. That darkness seemed to stretch on forever. I could swear I saw a thousand eyes blinking at me, twinkling like nightmarish stars. And then they started to move closer to me, and I couldn’t disappear into the wall as badly as I wanted to, so I couldn’t get away. The closer they got the emptier and colder I felt, until it seemed like I would never be happy again, and I believed that. At five years old, I thought I was going to die in this house.”

Rey had stopped working on his leg, but Ben hadn’t even noticed. Even now, as he recalled the distant memory, he could still feel that penetrating cold. Rey watched him, and she thought she could feel it too; a ghost of it, faint and dream-like, but horrifying all the same.

“What did they do to you?” she asked quietly, just above a whisper.

“They reached for me,” Ben answered stonily. “It looked like a dozen hands were reaching out of the darkness and grabbing at my clothes, my body, and my hair. Like they were trying to drag me somewhere. I could feel their broken, dirt-encrusted fingernails grating over my scalp and catching on my shirt sleeves. There was this choking sensation...I remember clawing at my throat like something was tightening around it, but there was nothing there save for my own shirt collar. 

“I could hear their rasping breath and that awful, putrid stench got increasingly worse. It made my nose burn. I kept screaming and choking and crying, and they just kept grabbing at me, trying to pull me somewhere. As they grabbed and pulled, a voice began to speak to me. It told me many things, most of which I can no longer remember, but I do recall it saying it needed me for something. But it didn’t get to tell me exactly what that was. Just when I thought I couldn’t resist their assault any longer, I remember seeing a pair of eyes before me—hazel in colour; a mix of forest green and earthy brown—and they looked afraid. A female voice screamed out my name but I didn’t recognize it. 

“They were still swarming me, though, so I didn’t think much of it. I don’t know what their plan was, but thankfully my mother found me before they could do anything more.” 

Rey was silent for a beat. Her mouth hung agape, and she had gone as still as a statue listening to him tell his story.

“I’m so sorry, Ben,” she whispered. She sounded remarkably choked up. “That should never happen to a child.” 

“No, it shouldn’t,” Ben agreed solemnly. 

There was something in the way her eyes looked wetter that made his heart jump in his chest. Would she really cry for him? He who was not worthy of her tears? Oh that he could be a teardrop in the corner of her eye, and spill out to warm her cheeks and relieve her of her emotional burdens.

She cleared her throat, though, and rejected her unshed tears. She adjusted the makeshift bandage she had created out of a thick emerald ribbon from her dress bodice, forcing his attention away from her face and onto his leg.

“You’re all fixed up here,” she said meekly. 

She picked something up off the floor beside her right knee and offered it to him in her palm. It was a well-sized piece of glass, roughly an inch and one-quarter in length, with jagged edges all around. 

“Here’s your problem,” she said, trying her best to hide a triumphant smirk, clearly proud of herself. “That ghost did quite the number on you, don’t you think?”

“Mm. I think it could have done something much worse to you. If I’m being perfectly honest, I would have taken a much harder hit if it meant that you remained unharmed.” 

Rey flushed, averting her gaze downwards as she so often did when flustered. Ben thought it was incredibly charming.

“Yes, well, I suppose I never properly thanked you for saving me,” she said softly.

“No thanks are necessary…”

“Nevertheless…” 

Rey leaned close and placed a lingering kiss upon his cheek. Her lips were soft like rose petals, and he wanted desperately to turn his head towards them, claim them with his own, but there was something in the way she was looking at him that made him pause. Something that said  _ not yet _ .

But he was greedy. Like a fool, he closed the distance between them and kissed her mouth, not simply because he wanted to, but because he needed to. He needed to kiss her in that moment like he needed to breathe air. Retelling his most frightening childhood memory in the house where it had happened had made him feel anxious and unprotected. But she was everything calm and peaceful and good. He just needed to breathe her in, and cup her jaw, and let himself love her, even if he couldn’t speak the words. 

The satisfaction he felt when her initial shock melted away and she relaxed into his kiss was insurmountable. He felt like he could explode, not that it would be the time or place for such a catastrophic reaction. So instead he held her a little tighter, and kissed her with a little more fervor, chasing that same kind of release.

He thought for an instant he may get that chance, but then she pulled back, leaving him feeling as cold as that day in the cellar.

She cleared her throat gently. “It sounds quiet out there now. Shall we go take another look?” 

She didn’t acknowledge what they had just done.  _ Right. That’s what we’re here for. Ghosts,  _ Ben thought morosely.

“Oh, uh...yes, I suppose we should.”

She helped him to stand, and he found himself to be much sturdier on his right leg, although it still ached dully beneath its bandage. Then she left the room, giving him plenty of privacy to pull his pants back up, with what dignity he had remaining.

The feeling they both experienced when they opened the door of the half-bath was one of hollow, empty fear. They were afraid, they just didn’t quite know what—or who—they feared yet. For all intents and purposes, the house looked empty, and impossibly quiet. For a split second neither one of them were absolutely certain that they were still inside the same house.

“Where do you think they’ve gone?” Rey queried, daring to step out of the bathroom, though careful to walk only on the balls of her feet.

Ben got a sinking feeling in his gut. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear them calling his name from the basement.  _ Of course that’s where they’d be,  _ he thought.  _ That’s where they wait.  _ So, that was it, he thought. He was going to have to go down there again; down to the most horrifying place he had ever known, despite the countless haunted locations he had been to in his time. 

“I have a pretty good idea.” 

At the top of the stairs, Ben hesitated. The old, creaky wooden steps with their peeling white paint faded into a shadow which seemed to stretch on for eternity. But it was not an empty shadow — quite the contrary. It was pulsing with activity and humming with agitated energy. He felt a surge of anxiety and adrenaline, akin to the way soldiers feel before they step foot on a battlefield. His heart was pounding, and he could feel cold sweat gathering along his hairline.

“It has to be something to do with the dirt floor down there,” Rey thought out loud, clearly not bothered by his uncertainty. “It must be a connection to something, whether that’s the natural energy field of the earth, or the fact that they died on that land…”

“Whatever it is, I’m afraid it doesn’t matter much now,” Ben sighed, slightly agitated by her unwanted commentary. “They’ve got us where they wanted us.” 

She looked up at him. Worry creased her brow. Nevertheless, the two of them made it down the basement stairs to the old cold room doorway. There, they had to pause again. Ben was breathing hard, though not from descending the stairs.

“Are you going to be alright?” she asked.

Ben frowned. “I don’t know.” 

Instinctually, Rey took his hand and squeezed it tight. The spark of fear lit in their chests, sending shivers down their spines. There was something terribly off about that room. They could feel it: all the anger, pain and suffering. 

Rey jumped next to Ben, causing him to hold her tighter. He recognized the vacant expression on her face. She was seeing something; a snapshot movie of the past, playing for only her eyes to see. Ben did not care for the way her skin paled, or the way her bottom lip trembled just slightly.

When she snapped out of her trance a minute later, she was gasping and her forehead was slicked with a fine sheen of cold sweat.

“What is it?” Ben asked eagerly. “What did you see?”

“A murder,” Rey answered. “Can we sit down? I-I need to sit.”

Before Ben could direct her to a proper seat, she was folding her legs beneath her on the hardwood floor. He relented and joined her.

“Do you remember when we first got here? There was that chair in the front room? I felt something the instant I laid a finger on it. I felt death. Now I know why.”

“Tell me.”

“There was a woman who moved into this house, after your father remodeled it. As far as I can tell she was terribly lonely, and craved affection. Not long after moving in she met somebody. A man. She loved him instantly. 

“But the man wasn’t good. He wasn’t...right. He hid things from her. The more he showered her with compliments and attention, the easier it was to hide his secrets. He drank heavily, too; again, masking his addiction with his pleasant distractions. I can taste the alcohol; I smell it on his breath. It’s sour. Overwhelming.” She swallowed, and gave her head a little shake.

“He killed. Multiple times, in different places. Always women; lonely women.” Her nose wrinkled as she concentrated.

“There’s always been an energy about this place. I think...I think long before there was a house here, these were execution grounds.”

That made the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stand on end.  _ The Danglers _ , he thought.  _ Hanged men and women, all of them. _ He’d always had a feeling, of course. The long skinny necks were a good clue. But now he had all the confirmation he needed. To him, Rey’s word was gospel, always.

“I keep seeing flash images of bodies, swaying under the branches of that old tree out back. Hundreds of them. And this soil is drenched in blood.”

“Oh, Christ…” Ben muttered, haunted. 

“But this energy, this darkness that saturates this place, it latched on to the man, because he was already filled with his own evil. It made him stop sleeping. It made him fixate on death, even more than before.”

Rey screwed up her face as though she had tasted something bad, and her fingers scratched at her neck. 

“What is it?” Ben inquired.

“I’m feeling...god, it’s just awful, what he did to her,” Rey muttered. “She...she wouldn’t stop asking for marriage, and a baby. Talking incessantly about a nursery, cribs and rocking chairs and prams;; all the hinting, it drove him mad. I can feel how it grated on his nerves…” Her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides.

“So what did he do, Rey?”

“He…” She swallowed distastefully and rubbed at her throat again. “He felt he had to put an end to her chatter. A dark voice would seep from the walls at night and tell him how to do it, and when.

“Every night, she would sit in that chair before the fireplace, and have tea and read her books. So he waited. He knew she would be all alone, defenseless. There was a rug there that would muffle his footsteps. He’d done this before. He was good at it. 

“He snuck up behind her and...I…” Her voice trailed off and Ben watched her short fingernails scratching the prickled skin of her neck, leaving fine white tracks in their wake. Ghosts lived in her eyes.

“He stabbed her, once, in the neck. I can just see it...so much blood, going everywhere. She was so shocked she didn’t even scream, and I think he just kept attacking her. She tried to speak, but all that came out of her mouth was blood. He broke her jaw. Tore out her hair.”

In Ben’s mind, an image flared of the ghastly spirit he had seen earlier in the master bedroom. No wonder he didn’t recognize her; she died in the home after his family had left it.

“Eventually, he dragged her down those very stairs behind us, while she was still just clinging to life. He dumped her down in the cellar. That’s a hotspot for activity; the nastiest spirits spend their time there.”

Ben shuddered. He could confirm that.

“It was in there that he...he...dismembered her body. He buried her in the dirt there, deep, deep down. She’s still there.”

Ben’s chest felt tight, like he couldn’t properly breathe. For the second time that night he thought he may vomit. 

“I’ll go take a look,” he finally said, mustering all of his strength to do so. 

“What? No. I’ll go. You should rest.”

Rey beat him to the door. There was something about her standing there before all that darkness that made Ben panic. 

“Come away from there!” he pleaded.

“It’s fine, Ben,” Rey said, brushing him off in that cavalier way of hers. “Are you coming?”

Slowly, hesitantly, he walked into the cold room. It coated him in gooseflesh in an instant. His heart was racing, his leg was throbbing, and he felt terribly anxious. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave, but he knew Rey would stay if he did that. And he would never, could never, leave her here alone. 

She found the trapdoor by touch alone and hauled it open. Instantly a foul, earthy odour pooled out and struck them both, offending their noses. 

“It sure is dark down there,” Rey mused, bending her knees to get a closer look. 

Ben felt dangerously lightheaded. That trapdoor being opened had sent his panic into overdrive, and he now found himself stumbling, searching behind him for the wall or anything he could lean on for support. 

“I don’t think I can go down,” Ben admitted, weakly. “I’m sorry, Rey. It shouldn’t affect me like this, but I just…”

“It’s alright,” Rey said gently. “You don’t need to explain yourself.” 

Without any hesitation, she turned around to descend the ladder steps into the cellar. She wasn’t three steps down when suddenly she jumped and made a startled squeaking noise.

“What?” Ben demanded instantly. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing, I just...I thought I felt something on my ankle,” Rey murmured. “I’m sure it’s nothi—”

She let out a terrifying scream and Ben watched in horror as her body was pulled forcibly downwards. Her nails raked along the wooden sides of the ladder steps.

Her eyes were trained on Ben. Wide, terrified hazel eyes; forest green mottled with earthy brown, they were pleading with him for help. And he had seen those eyes before. He had seen  _ this _ before, though not in so much detail. It had happened in a nightmare, but so often did nightmares bleed into reality. 

He lurched forwards, just in time to grab hold of her fingers, but she quickly slipped out of his grasp when her captor gave one more solid tug on her ankles. She screamed again, then the darkness swallowed her whole.

Ben yelled, a garbled mess of anger and terror. He had been so afraid to go into that cellar, and now he had no choice. 

Because if Rey was in danger, it wasn’t a question for him. There was no need to contemplate. There was only her.

So, despite everything, Ben found himself half-stepping, half-jumping down into the cellar. That stench overwhelmed him and made his eyes water, but he pressed on. 

“Rey!” he yelled.

He could hear her whimpering in the corner, begging them to go away. Just like when he was a child. He could see her shape, curled in on herself, behind the crowd of Grey People surrounding her. They were running their awful fingers over her face and tugging on her hair, pressing in ever closer. 

As he drew nearer he realized that wasn’t all they were doing. They had her pinned to the ground — one was kneeling on her chest, covering her mouth with its palm; another two were on her legs, as four more held her arms down. All this, while three of them were fastening a crudely-made noose around her neck. Tears were cascading down the side of her face and getting caught in her hair. She struggled beneath them; her limbs twitched with every effort, but they were an immeasurable weight upon her body.

He didn’t even think about it. He bowled into the spirits, howling and snarling like a mad man. He felt their icy coldness, and their desperation. It made him feel dizzy and sick. For a long moment he felt as though he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t feel any of his extremities. But as he reached through all of that, it wasn’t long before he felt a real live human hand grab onto his, and he gave a good pull. Rey was propelled forwards until she collided with his front, which she clung to fiercely.

“Are you alright?” Ben spoke, breathless, in her ear.

She didn’t answer at first. She shivered against him, and her fingernails left stinging, crescent-shaped indentations in the flesh of his arms, where she gripped him with a strength he hadn’t known her to be capable of. 

“...Rey?” 

Suddenly, there was a gasping breath. It had come from Rey, of that much he was certain; but the breath itself was rough, wet and rattling, a sound she couldn’t possibly have made. Ben knew this because it had reminded him of one thing only, and that was the sound of death.

This frightened him, and he opened his mouth to scream at her, but before he could speak another voice overtook him. It was a strange voice, made even stranger by the fact that it was coming from Rey. It was breathy and deadly all at once, like the sharp hissing of a snake. The vocal tone was barely apparent, but when Ben caught it, it sent a violent chill through his entire body, nearly causing him to collapse. 

“Ben Solo,” it whispered, “I always knew you would return to this place.”

It was in this moment that Ben realized he knew this voice. One of those memories he had tucked away in a far-off corner of his mind stepped into the light once more, freezing his heart in his chest. 

This was the voice of his childhood nightmares. This was the voice that had tortured him for all those years; the one that had encouraged him to do terrible things, and tried to lead him away in his sleep. It had called his name from every dark corner of this house. It had showed him grotesque mental images of death and destruction and chaos, sometimes tricking him into believing they were real, as provocation.

He hadn’t had a name for this voice. But he had always thought it belonged to Death.

“No,” he murmured, quickly stepping away from Rey. Her upper body then flopped forward like a doll without a hand to guide it; her arms stuck out at odd angles with her elbows bent. Her hair obstructed her face, but Ben knew if he could see it, he would not find her there. “No. This can’t be real…I’m dreaming again, I must be.”

“Foolish child,” it snarled, making another rattling sound that could have been laughter, if the voice did not belong to a dead man. “You were always lost in your dreams. In dreams, you are easy prey. You are malleable. Now look at you. This is no dream, boy; and yet you are easier to manipulate awake than you are asleep.” 

Ben wanted to argue. He wanted to get angry, or violent; to tell the spirit, whoever it was, that it was no predator to him. But he knew that was exactly what it wanted, and he would not indulge it this time. 

Instead, he decided to speak to Rey, and only Rey. Because he knew she wasn’t gone, but rather, she had been pulled behind the curtain for a moment in time. If his voice could reach her, there was a chance she could force her way back to the stage.

“Rey. Can you hear me? I know you’re there. Fight this, Rey. If anyone can fight this, it’s you.”

“She cannot fight me, no better than you can,” it taunted.

“Please, Rey. I need you. I need you, very much. Take back control of what’s yours.” 

Suddenly her head snapped up, her eyes wide but glazed over with a milky white film. Ben took a cautious step back. A strange smile spread across Rey’s face. It was too large; the corners of her mouth looked like they were being pulled to their farthest extent, and her teeth were parted just enough to suggest a desire to bite, gnash, and consume. 

“Why have you come back, Solo?” it asked, sickeningly sweet.

Ben straightened. “I came to rid myself of this place, of  _ you _ , once and for all.”

Again, it made that awful, rasping chortle.

“You always were prone to failure. You shall fail again here, today, on this quest of yours. You will never leave. We will keep you here forever.”

_ “Rey!” _ Ben screamed.

“You came back here because this is where it all began. This is where you learned you were special. Where you learned you had  _ power _ , and abilities that no one else had. You can see us, Ben. You can speak with us. Through you, we can communicate. We can get our revenge.”

“No,” Ben choked, “I will never do what you ask of me.”

“You will, or I will rid you of your heart’s deepest desire,” it answered hauntingly. “Do not forget, I am in control of her now.” 

“Don’t hurt her!” Ben yelled. “What do you want of me? Why do you continue to follow me everywhere I go?”

“Your energy is chaotic; it’s raw, and untamed. We feast upon it, much as we do with this new treasure you brought into our midst, and it strengthens us. You are both so similar — it’s striking. With you as an energy source, we can manifest, and spread. You are the key that will allow us to walk through the front gate, and out into the world.”

“You do not have permission to take of our energy!” Ben snarled. “Release her!”

The voice laughed coldly. “Your compassion for this vessel will be your undoing. That’s all she is, after all: an unclaimed cloak for us to slip on whenever we like. She’s even easier to control than you. It makes me wonder...what would become of you, if I just broke her bones, or collapsed her lungs? I could have her pull off her own flesh, if you would prefer.”

_ “Don’t!” _ Ben screamed. “Leave her, you abomination!”

“There it is,” the voice purred. “There’s your fear. It’s delectable…”

Rey turned those blinded, unblinking eyes on him. He could feel her gaze petrify him where he stood. They were the eyes of a stranger in the face of the girl he loved. This both terrified him and enraged him, and in that moment, he knew what to do. He only required an opportunity to do it.

“ _ You _ came into  _ our _ world. You cannot make us go.” the voice said mockingly.

“No, but I can make it very hard for you to stay.”

Desperate, and feeling more drained of energy by the second, Ben began reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the first one which came to his mind. It didn’t appear to have much effect on the spirit inhabiting Rey’s body, but it did cause it to still, as if enraptured.

“Unholy spirit, I cast you out!” he went on, speaking louder and with more passion. 

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he removed a small flask filled with holy water and began splashing it into Rey’s face. Instantly, a violent hissing sound filled the cellar as the spirit thrashed around within her. Her fingers clawed at her eyes, trying to rub the blessed water out. Ben took this opportunity to grab her wrists and pin them together with one hand behind her back, pushing her front into the wall and bracing her there with his own body. 

The spirit was strong, but Ben was stronger. Despite its jerking movements and the ear-splitting hissing, Ben was able to force her mouth open, enduring a vicious bite in the process, and he drained the remainder of his flask down her throat.

The spirit could take it no longer and Ben watched as it left her body, wailing and weakened, and she collapsed against him, a dead weight in his arms.

Quickly, he lowered her to the floor, brushed the hair from her face, and wiped his blood from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were closed but her eyebrows were knitted together as if she were in pain.

“Rey! Please say something. Please…” he begged. Tears restricted his throat.

She coughed loudly and hard enough that her entire body seized with the force of it. She turned away from him quickly and spat into the dirt floor, ridding herself of every last bitter remnant of the spirit.

“Ben…” she croaked.

“I’m here, I’m right here,” he consoled, pulling her back into him. He placed a firm kiss atop her head. “I’m here with you. Are you alright?”

“Oh, Ben,” she shuddered against him and her fingers clenched his shirt in a weak fist. “I’ve never felt darkness like that before. It was pure evil.”

“But you fought it off, and you pushed through it. It’s gone now.”

“Thank you,” she sniffled, and Ben could hear the heavy emotion in her voice. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if...if…”

“Shh. You should not linger on such things.”

“Yes, you are right,” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Now, can you kindly take me out of this place?”

They got up the cellar steps and Ben scooped Rey up in his arms like she weighed nothing, deciding that things would just simply move faster if he carried her the rest of the way. They walked out of the house like that, and Ben kept on walking until they got to the very edge of the front lawn, where he finally set Rey down on her own two feet. 

Both of them were breathless and visibly shaken. But they were out of that house’s toxic cloud, and the cool outdoor air felt good on their panicked, overheated flesh. 

Rey was slowly beginning to regain colour in her face, though her shaking fingers continued to massage the faint red line across her throat, and her eyes retained a haunted glaze.

“Are you alright?” Ben asked again.

She looked at him with a penetrating stare. It was evident to Ben that she was thinking hard about something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

“I will be,” she answered quietly. “I just need to feel something else.” 

“Something else?” 

“Something good, real, and alive. I feel the energy of that house clinging to me like smoke and I wish to be rid of it. I have allowed enough spirit emotion to interfere with my own for today.”

Her head tilted ever so slightly to the right. Of course Ben had realized how close she stood to him. He could reach out and touch her without extending his arm in the slightest. He thought he could hear his heartbeat in his head.

“Rey?”

“Shh, just let me—”

She kissed him, and it still managed to take him by surprise. Her fingers traveling through his thick hair, drawing him closer, were all it took for him to wrap her in his arms. It was the kind of kiss that could make a grown man dizzy, and it did. 

When they finally broke the kiss, they looked at each other through mutually dazed eyes for a moment.

“Don’t you feel better?” Rey asked in a near-whisper.

Ben nodded. Warmth had returned to his body. He felt ten times lighter, and his mind was, unbelievably, clear. Decades-old nightmares no longer waited in the shadows to pounce. Maybe he hadn’t gotten all the answers he’d come for, but he knew that had been a lofty aspiration from the start. The house was, and always would be, a mystery. Like a vortex to another time and place, it could not be entirely understood. The Grey People were certainly frightening, but they were just that: grey. Lifeless, amorphous shadow people with blurry features, and a disembodied voice; they were nothing but memories of times long since past. They weren’t vibrant. They weren’t warm. They weren’t Rey. All he saw, knew, felt, and breathed was her. 

“I’m afraid I am at risk of sounding terribly unprofessional,” Rey warned, snapping him from his peaceful reverie, “but I would very much like to be kissed by you again.” 

Ben grinned broadly, so much that it crinkled the outer corners of his eyes.

“Can I ask a question?” he queried.

“You may.”

“Are you saying that or are the spirits speaking through you?” 

Rey chuckled, and pulled him close to get what she wanted, as if he ever would have denied her of it.

“I am. You should know better by now, Benjamin. Truly, it has never been about the ghosts.”

**Author's Note:**

> Where else to find me: 
> 
> [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/reyloghosts)
> 
> [Tumblr.](https://reylo-solo.tumblr.com)


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